Theatre and Culture from Scotland, starring The List's Theatre Editor, his performance persona and occasional guest stars. Experimental writings, cod-academic critiques and all his opinions, stolen or original.

Wednesday, 25 November 2015

Diderot and the Lapdancer: Chapter One.

In good
weather, it was his habit to arrive at the club around five o'clock in the evening. I’d see him there, sitting with his back facing the bar, always alone,
wrapt in thought. He was discussing with himself – and anyone who caught his
attention – politics, love, art, philosophy.

I’m indulging my mind, he says, in whatever it fancies,
letting it follow the first thought, daft or wise that it comes across...

Like
the regulars, who follow the dancer with a carefree look, a welcoming face and
a lively eye, then leaving her for another? His thoughts are his whores,
obviously. Although the term preferred now is sex workers (a reminder that his
revolutionary mind did not quite extend to the liberation of women...)

And do those
thought ever follow to actually having a
dance while you are here?

I was accosted by one of the most extraordinary characters
that this country possesses – and God knows we are not short of them! She’s a
mixture of the noble and the base, intelligence and madness.

It’s
very charming of you to describe me so, Mr...?

Diderot. I am the irresistible Diderot.

I’ve
seen you here often, Diderot. But don’t you ever have a dance?

I don’t care for oddities like you. Once a year is enough
for me.

Ah,
Mister Philosopher! What are you doing among this group of scoundrels, then?
Are you wasting time pushing the wood around?

I enjoy watching the dancers work the room, when I have
nothing better to do.

An
observational philosopher, are we? Not a bold anthropologist who mixes with the
culture he would understand?

As long as things are in our understanding only, they are
just opinions: it’s only by observing external objects, and linking them to our
understanding, that we can know whether they be true or false.

You say
that, yet you know that there is a multitude of phenomena that happen beyond
the limitations of your understanding... for example, what happens behind the
black curtain, Mr Diderot?

It is easier and quicker to consult my own mind than
investigate it in the world.

I think
perhaps you’ll be astonished if you had a dance?

Then my work as a philosopher would be to dissipate that
astonishment.

Then
let me remind you that you are in the club, and here a certain set of rules
abide. ‘Take the dress of the country you are going to...’

And in reply, let me remind you that your dance is merely
the end of a process whereby the most solemn desires, a noble and innocent
pleasure, has been converted into a source of depravity and evil. To be clear,
in a better society, where no laws bound the natural passions, where women are
not trapped in matrimony, where social status can be no barrier to shared
delights, this corrupted merchantile exchange, this commodification of the very
body itself, would be an unnecessary transaction.

The
philosopher speaks again of ideals, some utopia of authentic experience. I can
see the conflict in your eyes, the gestures, the way you writhe upon the seat:
the natural man, with natural curiosity and honest passions, longs to know what
is behind the curtain. Yet the other man, the artificial moral man, strives to
chain this natural inquisitiveness with rules and codes. You want...

We both want... you want my money... you are made ill by the
tyranny of man, who has made you into
property.

In
want, a man has no remorse. In sickness, a woman has no shame... now, do you
want to discover how shameless I can be?

And so
he agrees, knowing that pleasure and pain are the only foundations for action,
and that those educated men who lock themselves away from life for the benefit
of study are not driven by their desire for women but thinking, only thinking
(and that was never his desire).

Absurd opinions, extended reviews, random press releases from The Arts, half baked ideas, unsuccessful experiments with the format of criticism. Brought to you by the host of The Vile Arts Radio Hour and former Theatre Editor of The Skinny, now working with The List